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Before quick and dirty thesis show

We had a quick and dirty show of all thesis projects at ITP on 28th March. I made a poster describing my thesis project. I chose to use simple illustrations and a very few words to keep it simple. Prototype of the hydroponic system has a bright visual appearance to it because of the LEDs, so I made the poster without any colors and photographs: I made a few quick iterations for how user interaction might look like, and used these printouts to see how one would make meaning out of what they see on the interface.

Looking at why I’m interested in this project, I divided users in tree categories and made corresponding questionnaires:

Users interested in gardening/ farming

Do you like gardening?

Tell me about your prior experience in farming / gardening! Do you have plants in your apartment or workplace?

Tell me how do you take care of those plants. How do you manage to water your plants in your daily schedule?

What do you think of this box (hydroponic system I have)? (Responses I’ve heard so far: It looks attractive, inviting, interesting, quirky-purple, nerdy, scientific)

Why do you think it looks (attractive, inviting, interesting, quirky-purple, nerdy, scientific)? Might need to rephrase it with a better question. Objective is to understand what key aspects they find exciting about it.

Would you like to have this box for yourself? Like, if I offer it to you right now with spinach and lettuce growing in it, would you like to keep it as a gift? (On top of their answer:) I give it to you, and I control it remotely so that you won’t have to worry about readings and gardening routines… But you get to eat the veggies!

2. Users aware of organics/ GMOs/ pesticides/ chemicals

How often do you buy groceries?

How much of leafy greens do you buy? (quantity, quality, frequency)

Where do you buy from- grocery stores? supermarkets? farmers’ markets? (If farmers’ market) why so? (real question: are you concerned about freshness, pesticides, chemicals, time it took for veggies to travel from farms to markets etc?)

Ever considered harvesting veggies yourself?

what were your thoughts/ ideas/ experiences?

3. Makers/ DIY enthusiasts/ kids

Would you call yourself a maker? Do you take interest in DIY projects? Ever clubbed those interests with food? Questions about above two classes